Mus. Marbles, VI., pls. 13, 14; Mansell, 700; Baumeister, Denkmaeler, p. 1181, fig. 1371; Michaelis, pl. 8, fig. 1; Overbeck, Gr. Plast., 3rd ed., I., p. 310, fig. 64; Murray, II., pl. 8; Mitchell, Selections, pl. 4; Waldstein, Essays, pl. 3; Stereoscopic, No. 110; Sauer, Athenische Mittheilungen, XVI., p. 79.
304 A*. Between A and the two next figures (B, C) a space is shown in Dalton's drawing sufficient for a crouching figure, though no vestige of such a figure is indicated by Carrey. Traces also remain on the floor of the pediment (Sauer, Athenische Mittheilungen, xvi., p. 78). This gap may have been filled by a crouching Water Nymph, associated with the River-god. Brunn suggests a tributary of the Eleusinian Kephissos.
304 B, C. Cecrops and Pandrosos (cast).—This group still remains in the pediment at Athens, though much injured by exposure to the weather. It consists of a male figure, whose left thigh receives the main weight of his body, which leans a little to the right, resting on his left hand. With him is grouped a female figure, who has thrown herself in haste on both knees, with one arm round the neck of her companion. Her action expresses surprise at the event occurring in the centre of the pediment, towards which she has looked back. She wears a long chiton, and over it a diploïdion which falls below the girdle, and which has slipped from the left shoulder, leaving the left breast and side exposed. Her left arm, now entirely wanting, was broken off a little below the shoulder at the date of Carrey's drawing. The male figure has a mantle cast over his lower limbs. His right arm, which was broken off below the elbow in the time of Stuart, is now reduced to a stump. The right leg and knee and part of the right thigh have also been lost since the time of Stuart. It appears from the statements of travellers (cf. Michaelis, p. 194) that these figures lost their heads in the years 1802 and 1803. The careful drawing of the group made by Pars, and preserved in the British Museum (Stuart, ii., chap. I., pl. 9; Michaelis, pl. 8, fig. 2), shows that the heads of both figures were turned towards the central group, the head of the female figure being, moreover, slightly inclined over the left shoulder. In this drawing the right arm of the male figure is bent at a right angle, the upper part being nearly horizontal. On the ground between the pair is a convex mass, which has been recognised to be part of the coil of a large serpent. The remainder of this serpent may be seen at the back of the group, passing under the left hand of the male figure. In front of this hand the body of the serpent terminates in a joint with a rectangular sinking, into which a fragment from the Elgin Collection has been fitted. (Mus. Marbles, vi., pl. 8, fig. 2.)
This group has received various names. Spon and Wheler took it to represent Hadrian and Sabina, and their opinion was repeated by Payne Knight. The group has also been called Heracles and Hebè; Hephaestos and Aphroditè. The association of the serpent with the male figure has led Michaelis (p. 193) to recognise in him Asclepios, in which case the female figure would naturally be Hygieia, who is constantly associated with the father of the healing art, and who was worshipped, conjointly with Asclepios, in a shrine at the southern foot of the Athenian Acropolis. The bearded head, too, of the male figure, as drawn by Pars, would well accord with the type of Asclepios. On the other hand, the serpent in connection with that deity is usually coiled round his staff, not winding along the ground, as on the pediment. The whole composition of this serpent in relation to the kneeling male figure rather suggests the type of the earth-born Cecrops, as has been maintained by a considerable number of archæologists. If we adopt this attribution, then the female figure so intimately associated with the bearded figure in this group would be one of the daughters of Cecrops, perhaps Pandrosos. For the topographical interpretations of Boetticher (Marathon and Salamis) and of Brunn (Kithaeron and Parnes) there is no evidence.
Michaelis, pl. 8, fig. 2; Murray, II., pl. 9; Stereoscopic, No. 111. A remarkably accurate copy of this group was recently discovered at Eleusis, and is now in the National Museum at Athens. In the copy the coils of the serpent are omitted (Ἐφημερίς, 1890, pl. 12).
304 D, E, F. If B and C are Cecrops and one of his daughters, the two female figures (D, F), who in Carrey's drawing follow next, might be his other two daughters. The boy (E) between them would be, in that case, not the infant Iakchos between Demeter (D) and Korè (F), as several writers have supposed, but the young Erysichthon, son of Cecrops. According to Brunn's scheme these three figures personify Lycabettos, between Pentelicon and Hymettos.
Of the three figures D, E, F, only one fragment, now at Athens, has been identified, representing the left knee of a seated figure, with the right hand of a boy resting on it, and thus corresponding with Carrey's drawing of the seated figure on whose knee the boy Erysichthon rests his right hand. A cast of this fragment is exhibited in a Wall-Case (No. 339, 8). A fragment, now at Athens with the drapery on the right side of a figure seated on a rock, has been conjecturally assigned by Michaelis (pl. 8, fig. 5) to figure D or U. A cast is exhibited, No. 339, 7.
In Dalton's drawing a draped female torso, broken off at the knees, is placed next to C, which Michaelis (p. 191), conjectures to be the remains of F. Dalton has represented this figure with the chiton slipped down from the right shoulder so as to show the right breast and side. But the drawing by Pars shows next to C a part of a figure which accords more with D as drawn by Carrey. This fragment consists of a right arm bent at a right angle and advanced, and a line of drapery falling down the right side below the armpit. There is no reason to doubt that the figure to which the arm belonged was in position on the pediment when Pars drew it, and, if so, Dalton's drawing must be wholly inaccurate in respect to this figure. (See Michaelis, pl. 8, fig. 2.)
304 G. Next in order in Carrey's drawing is the seated female figure (G), who acts as charioteer to Athenè, and who has been generally recognised as Nikè. The only fragment which can be attributed with any probability to this figure is the head, obtained from Venice by Count de Laborde (No. 339, 1). A cast is exhibited in the Elgin Room.